Eleven comments

Dirty Old Town

I saw this in the requests list so put it in. Ewan MacColl wrote this song and had it sung in a play of his performed in 1949, called "Landscape With Chimneys" (acc. Wikipedia, the song was brought in to cover an awkward change of scene); the song was inspired by Salford, where he grew up.
Before co-founding the folk club scene in England in the 50s, MacColl had been a prolific playwright as well as actor and producer. (I hadn’t known that.)

The song is written about Salford, Lancashire, England, the town where MacColl was born and brought up. It was originally composed for an interlude to cover an awkward scene change in his 1949 play Landscape with Chimneys, set in a North of England industrial town,[1] but with the growing popularity of folk music the song became a standard. The first verse refers to the Gasworks croft, which was a piece of open land adjacent to the Gasworks 53°28′50″N 2°16′36″W, and then speaks of the old canal, which was the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal."

Re: Dirty Old Town

Hi Folks,
Just wondering if someone could explain a few things to me regarding the notation of Dirty Old Town. Firstly I’m pretty new to playing an instrument just started to learn about 3 months ago so go easy, please.
On the very first line, it has z2 D2 E2 G2 what does the number represent or what is it instructing me to do? Then B4 B4 whats the number 4 for? Then the A<G what is the < symbol telling me to do? and finally, some of the letters are capitals are some are the lower case does this mean anything?
hopefully, sombody can educate me as it would be very much appreciated.